chaplain barry black takes to the senate floor and starts off with a prayer, but things are ominous in d.c. and we need a little prayer today. >> mighty god, let us feel your presence today on capitol hill. guide our lawmakers with your wisdom, look with favor on our nation and save us from self-inflicted wounds. >> very good. >> amen! self-inflicted wounds are right. >> and first thing, i want to thank everybody who responded, in the hospital and thank you all for coming you conservatives were great. and big announcement today, today is the birthday of one of the "the five" and that's the woman sitting next to me miss andrea tantaros, an old partner of mine for a long time. >> what? >> young partner. >> how old are you no >> a lady never tells her age, robert. >> say good night. >> happy birthday!. >> this is a fox news alert.

secretary of state hillary clinton has been admitted to the hospital for a blood clot. a state department spokesman says the clot was found in the course of a follow up exam for concussion on the secretary of state the one she sustained several weeks ago. she is being treated at new york presbyterian hospital. fox news will keep you updated on her condition. hello and welcome to a special edition of "justice." i am judge jeanine pirro. there's nothing more important than individual civil liberty. the stakes are never higher than in a criminal case. the possibility of being jailed, of losing one's freedom, the battle is always hard fought because the consequences are enormous. more often than not there's compromise. judges do it every day in courtrooms across this country. store owners do it every day in their shops and any parent running a household knows meeting the budget meeting deadlines baying the time and not over spending is

the key to survival. it's about compromise. we do it every day. leadership is about compromise. it's not demanded from on high. but the american people tonight are being held hostage by a congress and yet the president who danes from on high. >> if i fault president obama i would say sometimes he is stubborn like a visitor from a morally superior civilization. he comes in here and he will talk to boehner he won't talk with other republicans. he hasn't built the trust. >> we don't know how much is going to be in our paychecks next week whether that small business might hire us.

whether we can pay our mortgages chs leaders talk to each other get to the bottom of the problem and don't blame others and kick the can down the road. >> i do believe the president doesn't work hard enough bringing everybody into the white house rolling up his sleeves, getting him around the table saying how do we get this deal done? give a little something. show good faith about what needs to be done on deficit reduction and entitlement program. >> this isn't rocket science. politicians have to agree on a mix of tax increases and spending cuts. instead it seems more a game of hide and seek, a gotcha game about who is going to get blamed in the end. what is already agreed to is federal employees will get a half point to one percent pay raise this year. it is no wonder congressional approval ratings is at 18 percent. the performance by the people re-elected is a complete and

utter disaster. instead of their getting a raise, we should get our money back. joining us now with the latest on the negotiations is chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel. >> the talks have shifted from the top two senators negotiating to senate republican leader mitch mcconnell trying to strike a deal with joe abide den. the senate majority leader left the capital shortly after making this comment about republicans trying to change the way inflation is measured on entitlement. >> i was really gratified to hear republicans taking their demand for social security benefit cuts off the table. truth is they should have never been on the table to begin with. they are still significant distance between twot sides and negotiations continue. still time left to reach an agreement and we can continue the negotiations. >> the senate is due to return

tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m. republican negotiator mitch mcconnell said he was concerned about a lack of urgency on the side of democrats. >> willing to work with whoever, whoever can help. there is no single issue that remains an impossible sticking point. the sticking point appears to be a willingness, an interest or frankly the courage to close the deal. last week he offered plan b but 40 of the 50 fellow republicans did not support the plan. he told colleagues in the senate they needed to work on a bipartisan deal. closed door meeting with house republicans i am told by multiple sources boehner received a standing ovation. he needs to win reelection as speaker later this week. >> with the 11th hour they make

one last effort to avoid the cliff. joining me is both who serve on the house budget committee. good evening. >> good evening. >> we are waiting here, waiting for something to happen in washington, and i will start with you congresswoman captor. what do you think is holding up the deal here? >> in the house it was the fact that speaker boehner's plan b went down. it didn't have a vote in the house. he went to the senate. jim and i are here, we are ready, we are not coming in to work at 11 like senator mcconnell just said we will be here earlier than that in the house. we are ready to receive whatever the senate is going to send to us. we thought something might come foe tonight but it didn't. i am optimistic we can reach agreement and reach across the aisle and get something passed for the american people not because of political party but

because it's the right thing to do. >> the american people have an 18 percent approval rating of congress, is it any surprise here we are a little more than 24-hours before we go over this cliff p and this deal can't get done. i mean, congressman langford, let me go to you. what is the hold up here. you guys have agreed apparently in the house. >> we have actually. we have see questionsstration in may we have waited on the senate since may. obviously well after the election. this is something that could have been done last summer. this is not some big surprise. that's the frustration. we are here on the house side waiting for the senate response waiting to come back. we were told it would be back by today.

typical process they send an anchor back and we have a compromise between the two. >> to each of you the same question. is the problem the level at which we are going to allow the bush tax cuts to be required or is the issue about identifying where we are going to stop this spending? >> it is both. >> in terms of the extension of tax benefits i support the extension to middle class family. the question becomes at the high end of the income range if a middle class family gets 2400 to 3400 should those who earn billions of dollars millions of dollars get 108,000 more? >> but that's not -- with all due respect we are not talking about those. i understand the negotiations are between 200 and 500,000.

what's the mitted el class going up from 400 to 500. isn't that where the line will be drawn ultimately? >> i can't tell you where the line really is. last week in the house i think jim would agree with me we were unable to get a vote on plan b because speaker boehner was not able to get some of those in his observe party. there's a huge divide between republicans. thank goodness that the senate senator reed, senator mcconnell are talking. >> i think it's great that if you want to point the blame at boehner you can do that. but with all due respect senator reed hasn't passed a budget. if you want to call one fight out let's call the other one.

>> we have all of the documents we needed to pass and in 7 months we waited 3 and a half years the major focus on the house side is on the spending. the tax rates went up went over the fiscal cliff wall of the ta rates went up on every single american, we would still have a deficit twice as large as the largest bush deficit. we are spending a trillion more a year than we were five years ago. we have to resolve dhou we continue to spend this money. we can wrap around how we get this spending down no amount of taxation is going to solve the problem. >> why is it there's a reluctance to identify where the spending cuts should go? no one wants to talk about the sacred entitlements but at some point we have to. if we are spending a trillion dollars a year and if the revenues are offset by the

spending recommended by the president our grandchildren will be held hostage. >> get everybody back to work. we did not pay for the cost of the war. president bush should have done that. both were declared during his administration. that cost is enormous. huge pay out to health insurance unemployment compensation and so forth because the wholly con me went to pot. of course spending would go up. having responsible legislation is so important. it starts if the congress has been a part of economic growth in this country. hurt holiday sales over the last several weeks. the market is uncertain. >> that's why you guys should

have been doing your job. you say we have got to get back to work. honestly if i had run the joint you wouldn't have gone home. >> i am not in charge. >> what did you say? >> i would be glad to say that's why we came back early. it is a major budget issue. as congresswoman issued the wars were 88 million, $1 trillion single year deficit. we are spending 88 million on the war but we have a trillion dollars deficit in a single year. a lot bigger issues than just the war. we are over spending in a lot of areas. they have to be addressed. we will deal with duplication and fraud in government. it was released that hasn't moved in the senate. that is what made this so frustrating. >> you know what i like that the two of you are engaging in a nice conversation with each other. but i happen to agree i think there is so much duplication and as a prosecutor, i used to

prosecute medicaid fraud. i could come up with a fortune if we could look at some of the fraud there. thank you for being with us this evening. hopefully there will be some kind of a deal if it works out. >> i wish we could prosecute some of the wall street bang cores we could bring more revenue into the united states. >> we need to recognize we can prosecute everybody but ef we h to stop suspending. >> thank you. coming up what does the fiscal cliff mean and how does it effect you your family and your wallet? later if we go over the fiscal cliff, would a response to an attack like benghazi be even worse? stay with us.

>> what president obama says about raising taxes. >> i am just listening to the consensus among people who know the economy best. and what they will say is that if you either increase taxes or significantly lower spending when the economies remain some what fragile it would have a de simulated effect and potentially you see a lot of folks losing business, more folks potentially losing jobs that would be a mistake when the economy has not fully taken off. with me is wall street journal senior economics writer receive moore. has the president changed his

mind? >> i love that quote that you have shown. i think it was almost exactly two years ago when the president said that. he said the economy was too fragile for a tax increase. the economy is more fragile now than it was two years ago. if the president were to make an announcement tonight and be a real statesman we are at a deadlock here, we can't reach an agreement, i am going to agree for the good of the country and good of the economy to extend the tax cuts for everybody for 6 months until we get this resolved we wouldn't be talking the fiscal cliff that would take statesmanship from the president and it would do the economy a world of good and i wish that would happen. think about this, this is a major situation. we are almost 24-hours away from the new year. no business, no investor, no worker knows what the capital gains tax will be the personal tax is going to be the social

security tax will be alternative minimum tax will be. it is like a third world country we are right to blame both parties in congress because they have to get their act together and get this done. >> i don't just blame both partys in congress i blame the president, too. this is about rolling up your sleeves making phone calls i remember whether it's lyndon johnson or bill clinton or ronald reagan they knew how to work the telephone. that's not happening here. >> it isn't. i think there's blame on both sides. one of the frustrations when i go to republican source on capitol hill they say the president is in the same place negotiation as he was 6 weeks ago that is to say you were right when there was spending problem. we are spending 1.2 trillion more than we take in. the amazing thing five, six weeks into the negotiations the president hasn't proposed a

single spending cut. it is an amazing thing. >> this is what is so incredible. there isn't any discussion other than the blame game. i will talk about this later in the show the president seems to be winning on the blame game when you look at some of the polls. let me go back to this issue of not just what happens next week in the paycheck with you we have the debt ceiling $1.64 trillion december 31st. by the way it's not like they didn't know this stuff was coming. where have they been? >> i am glad you brought this issue up. that is the real financial cliff we face as a nation not what will happen in 24-hours but the fact that over the last four years we have borrowed $5 trillion more money than the united states borrowed from 1776 to the year 2000. these numbers are astronomically high.

every economist believes you can't borrow a trillion dollars year after year. we have this window of opportunity to get some of these problems solved. you heard harry reid say we can't cutnny out of social security or medicare programs those are the big boulders of the budget those are the programs that are driving this data. we are at a stalemate. i thought we would reach an agreement. i am not so sure at this point the president wants an agreement because i think he made a political calculation it's better to go over the cliff and spend the next 3, 4 weeks blaming the republicans. >> then again higher taxes and defense cuts and gets to blame the republicans. steve moore always good to see you. >> thank you judge, great to be with you. >> later in the show heads rolled in the state department over benghazi, right? wrong. the latest double speak from the obama administration. up next, just over 24-hours from now if we goefr the fiscal

cliff, who should we blame? re, ♪

♪ >> this country is about to take a plunge over the fiscal cliff. who is really to blame? watcjomg this one. >> president has a decision to make. he can support these measures or be responsible for reckless spending and the largest tax hike in american history. >> the republicans in the house have decide to do rundown an alley that has no exit. >> republicans aren't about to write a blank check or anything senate democrats put forward just because we find ourselves at the edge of the cliff. >> every time we come to a solution it was a year and a half ago in the summer right now the republicans walk away. >> don't automatically assume the president wants to cut a deal. i think he wants to wait to see if he gets blamed for it before he starts really negotiating. >> nobody can get 100 percent of what they want. this is not a contest between parties in terms of who looks good and who doesn't.

the real consequences to what we do. >> fox news contributor and democratic pollster doug sho/* schoen is here. >> the latest poll indicates that the country 44 percent blame congress, and 36 percent blame the president. are you going to take the party stand and take your side against the other one? doug schoen start with you? >> i am going to say everybody deserves blame. we had a poerl i think four times spending cuts as revenue increases neither side signed on. it was a balanced approach. the fact that we are sitting here literally on the eve of the new year if there is a deal it would be patchwork means the democrats congress and the president all deserve their

measure of blame. >> chip, do you agree with that? >> pains me to agree with doug. i feel like that's our job. not only are they not doing their job they are taking our job. >> i don't ever remember it being this bad whether it was right before the campaign but there is a sense and even if you watch this morning where the president was on meet the press even the people who were comment can afterwards he was from another complan et on high the latest we heard is mitch mcconnell has had to reach out to joe biden to try to get something done. what does that say about the president? >> the president's strategy is stay above it all blame the republicans if things don't succeed and assume if we go over the cliff the republicans will

get the blame. if they get the blame you know what there is a fix. the president will be the guy who comes in on the white horse to fix things in the new year. it's a political strategy. i agree with you. i wish you were negotiating but bottom line this is all politics when it should be the good of the country. >> when doug says stay above the fray, do you think the president has stayed above the frey? >> he took a shot at john boehner on meet the press. presidential leadership trying to get the deal done doesn't take the political shots even when they are easy because you are trying to get the deal done. the big deals don't happen without presidential leadership. this is good politics but it's not good policy. it may be good politics makes bad policy. >> isn't the problem ultimately

spending? the busheir raw tax cuts. some say it is going to come. covered it about a week with the budget we have. isn't the problem spending. aren't they identifying what we need to cut, dowling. >> i think it's both. i think it's revenue and spending. rep republicans are low to raise revenue and republicans slow to cut programs. i think the issue is a balanced approach like simpson where you raise ed one-quarter of the revenue you reform medicare and medicaid and you take on the military. if you do that in a balanced way but neither side is talking that way and it leaves us the american people at risk.

>> at least the house is doing something. the senate hasn't done anything. right chip? harry reid hasn't done it. >> at least the house toput something on the table. speaker boehner when we talk about the balanced approach if the president has a fair stick he talks about the rich need to pay a little bit more. >> it looks like we are defending the rich as opposed to we have a real problem all together. >> coming up, the president continues to defend his friend susan rice. is he perpetuating his own administration's line? later, vladimir putin moved despite the united states.

from america's news headquarters i'm patti ann browne. in new york, bit temperatures marking the end of 2012 across the northeast. southern new england hardest hit by the second winter storm in less than a week. up to a foot of snow reported there. almost five merrill lynch inches fell across pennsylvania. many travelers headed home after the holidays may find getting there a bit tough. the airlines had to cancel or tee lay more than 1500s flights over the weekend. just hours away now from the biggest new year's eve party in the world. monday night, new york's times scare will be packed with more than a million revelers. security will be a top priority. the nypd assigning thousands of extra cops. they will be assisted by bomb sniffing dogs. the police commissioner promises it will be the safest place in the world. i'm patti ann browne. now, back to "justice" with

judge jeanine. janeane. >> welcome back to this special ed kigs digs of "justice." president obama on his own u.n. bams dorr. >> i was clear that susan has been an outstanding u.n. ambassador for the united states. she appeared on a number of television shows that she and we understood could to be the best information at the time. before we get to the next guest congressman let's take a look back at the unfoldings of the obama administration narrative on benghazi. >> i want to take a moment to address the video circulating on the internet that has led to these protests. >> it is in response to a video. >> it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in

cairo as a consequence of the video. >> sure, they can keep saying it was a video, but let's call it what it was. another attack on innocent americans by al qaeda. >> we are still doing an investigation. there will be different circumstances in different countries. i don't want to speak to something until we have all of the information. >> oh, now we do an investigation? shauven smith one of four americans killed in benghazi with a management officer. his mother is infuriated with information he is receiving from the white house. >> leon pineda took his hands to his face and said trust me. i will tell you the truth. i will get the right information to you. just trust me. and when i heard that i knew i couldn't trust him. i don't trust any of them any more. they lied.

>> as for the susan rice debacle. >> for them to go after the u.n. ambassador who had nothing to do with benghazi and based on intelligence she had received, besmirched her is outrageous. >> if she had nothing to do with benghazi why did you send her out. >> instead of beefing up the security the state department lowers it. why? >> we have the correct number at the time of 9-11 for what we agreed upon. >> what was she smoking? mr. president you showed up at a campaign rally this week with all your power and might with air force one as a backdrop. why couldn't you send an f-16 as a back drdrop tro protect ameri lives. with me is utah congressman

jason chafith. good evening. >> hi, judge. >> today is december 30th, 3 and a half months since the attack. we are still waiting for more information and hillary is scheduled to testify. there are those who are saying that the new secretary of state can't be sworn in and that is john kerry a. >> we would love to have her here in the house as well. with her health problems what we have to deal with is a very serious thing. i hope she recovers quickly and it's not as severe as it sounds. never theless we need to hear her testimony. it's interesting we did this accountability review board this was an excuse by the administration we are not going to release any information even though they did for a period of nearly 75 days they wanted to

make sure the accountability review board had time to prepare this analysis. guess what, judge? they never interviewed secretary clinton. i haven't heard anybody talk about that. but somehow they did the full analysis and never talked to the secretary. a oo you know why that doesn't surprise me? i suspected they had not because they go through hoops thanking the fbi for cooperating with their investigation. the fbi is one doing the investigation. there was never any mention of the secretary of state cooperating with them. but congressman, i understand that there is a report, this is just released, that is due to be released tomorrow by the senate homeland security and government affairs committee. are you familiar with that? >> yes. my understanding they are scheduled to relate that. i will be interested to read it. i have not yet read it but it will be interesting to see what they did. the house of representties which is controlled in the house -- the house is controlled

republicans i think we would give a different analysis of it. you can't continue to ignore the republicans in the house in the oversight committee specifically chairman ice saw and others. we are going to be tenacious on this. we don't have the truth we are not given a list of names of the people who were injured in that firefight. we have not seen all of these documents even though we haven't seen those, think about it this way. the review board goes in and does this 60 plus day analysis and they have the challenges within the administration they offer nearly 60 different recommendations what in the world was going on over there? it's not as if one or two or three things were going wrong over there to have that many different recommendations or that many problems or challenges is a mess over there. >> it is even worse than that because the accountability review board report from 1999 on the bombings in kenya and tanzania had a lot of the same recommendations they didn't implement.

the standards were not implemented. you and i know that. but congressman i want to move on to another issue. this whole issue of there being at least four from the state department who have resigned and the latest that we are hearing is that is a little more double speak that they haven't resigned including that charlene lamb who was dead serious when she said we have a right number of assets in if benghazi where four americans were killed. now we heard people were on the payroll still and they just have been moved around and they had their job. what do you know? >> it starts at the top of the food chain where the president says, well it was sloppiness and we shouldn't blame this person. i heard you say this yourself judge. they blame nobody or blame everybody so nobody specifically gets blamed except ambassador stevens. that's the only one they point to is the victim here. we have to remember it was an al qaeda terrorist attack. that's the genesis of it but the

protection safety and security of the u.s. personnel we have thousands of people serving overseas. you have this incredibly damming report and internal report not even outside analysis. the president is saying sloppiness is what his quote was to us today. that's just inexcusable. >> well, i am sure that the families of those who were killed would agree with you. congressman jason chaffetz thank you for being with us this evening. >> thank you, judge. coming up more on the so-called resignation of four from the state department with former state department insider. and later, russian president vladimir putin makes it illegal, that's what i said, illegal for americans to adopt russian orphans.

>> four individuals in the state department high level were going to lose their jobs if the secretary had accepted a resignation of eric boswell for example one of the heads of the security when the truth is he resigned in that position but he has his portfolio includes other positions within the state department. he hasn't been punished at all for the security lapses in benghazi. and the other three are on

administrative leave basically a paid vacation over the christmas holiday and they will be back in another capacity the state department. they promised heads would roll nothing has rolled. >> what about the state department people that were head accountable today. joe lleyton said they are still on the payroll. with knee is fox news mill tear reap analyst hunt stau department christian widen from la. all right gentlemen. where is the accountability? is this yet another example of empty promises and watered down justice? colonel hunt? >> yes. it is. so many days have gone by since it happened. we haven't answered why the department of defense hasn't reacted one is the ambassador.

people were supposed to have been fired are on leave. that is part of the contract, i get it. we had the president after five days we only knew what susan rice says. that's not believable>> you said that is part of the contract i get it. if they resign they are out the door. >> it is not automatic it will happen the day of. the problem with the state department is a people problem. it is people through out the chain of command that need to be obtained for what didn't happen before september 11th and what didn't happen on september 11th. >> the president goes on national television and says

they have been held accountable. past tense. meanwhile the only person in jail is the guy who made the video. >> it is unusual when there's this much attention in washington where people aren't held accountable. at the state department there is not a problem. foreign service which all of these four member who's should have been fired are a member of and they really dominate the state department. contract or not they are members of the foreign service and hold a commission that can be revoked at any time by the president or secretary she could have kicked him out of the building and yanked security clearance and said they are no long merms of the service it is part of an overall problem that is beyond accountability from us? >> it is frightening. it clearly is arrogance. colonel hunt, benghazi. now there is talk about the spending cuts with the

sequestration that the military will suffer $55 billion as year in spending cuts. let's assume that benghazi were to happen next week, god forbid somewhere else, how would the spending cuts impact our ability to help americans in other parts of the world? it is hard to image a worse response than that day. but operationally a lot of things could not be available starting with satellite, starting with drones and the reaction forces that never got to benghazi. it could have been slower. if it goes off the cliff we have massive reduction capabilities to all of the services and it can't be allowed to happen. >> christian, what would happen if someone were to hold the state department or try to hold the state department accountable? assuming that there is a

commission as you just talked about with these people who have been, you know, resigned, can any one force them to leave the job if there is not a contract? >> the president has the ability to set foreign policy and can do things and fire people who are his aids and essentially these people are. but what really needs to happen there are two things going on. there is the mal fees san in libya he was smoking something saying probably everything was done right when everything was done wrong. we have the political scandal in washington. we have a cover up that is not being addressed. the house of representatives needs to do is use the power of the purse. congress needs to withhold funds from the executive branch or threaten to do so in order to get them to respond. the bureau of diplomatic security had a budget of 200

million in 1988. that is $1.8 billion. that's not that these people don't have money it's that they don't have the skill and politic political direction that they should do. >> at least they should have some protection to comply with the physical standards as to how these missions should be protected. you play a game where you say they are over here they are out the door when they really moved down the hall is just shocking. it is amazing that there is no resource. is there resource on the part of the families or any one else? >> none that i know of are taking mral-- place. >> refocusing the issue back on

why the white house covered this up why they sent the chief susan rice, u.s. ambassadn. ambassado something untrue. >> is national security at risk now with the see questionsstration cu-- sequestration? >> we have an army preworld war i. a navy preworld war ii. we would have the history of the air force affected. some stuff needs to be addressed in the department of defense that over spends no question. but suggests that it wouldn't be affected for example taxes on soldiers would go up. they don't get enough as it is. the concept would be damaging to national defense and seems to be very abrupt people stop doing their jobs. >> i couldn't agree with you

more. >> thank you for being with us. coming up russian bans american families from adopting their organs. why? stay with ususususus

>> russian president vladimir putin signs a law denying americans to adopt russian children. he signed it after a child died in a hot car in america. >> they are negative about foreigners adopting other churn. we need to do it ourselves. >> the reality americans are the most enthusiastic adopters are russian kids.

700,000 need homes only 18,000 russian families ex price a desire to take in an orphan. the state department says it regrets the decision along with new restrictions on civil society. >> reaction to the u.n. law passed by a lawyer who died in prison after investigating a 230 million tax fraud case. those russians believed some way link to do his death and other human rights violators from travel to go the state and freezing assets. some say they pass a a new law. >> it is immoral and despicable. this is a law that has $230 million stolen by russian bureaucra bureaucrats. >> this boy is son of a woman with disabilities from russia and the american families about to finalize an adoption with him may be his last chance for a

home. >> you rejected him because of his bloodline. >> there are dozens of russian children already adopted by american families. there are several prove to the russians they are fit parents. the u.s. government says it will fight to see at least these cases go through but with the new law set to go into effect january 1st it is not clear just what will happen. in london amy kellogg, fox news. i have always been a huge ronald reagan fan. they stood the test of time. following the ussr empire. why would put tin do this? although the law is widely considered retaliation for the united states having a post sanctions and not allowing russian officials involved in a

prison death of a whistleblower what is more interesting the ban on american adoptions is surprisingly popular in russia. american familiares are dangero and cruel toward russian children. this in spite of the fact over 45,000 children have been adopted in american families over the past 13 years. one sadly involving a young boy mistakenly left in a parked car. the truth is there are nearly 750,000 orphans in russia many with disabilities. 50 to 90 percent of them become drug addicts alcoholics or commit suicide. this guy says the out pour of children threatens russih russis future. there are probably many places in the world where standards are better than hours. should we spend all children there or move there ourselves

mr. put tin is better than the 3-year-old left to wander in his country than relatives who wouldn't take them. the judges approved the adoption the boy is scheduled to be brought to america next month. looks like that won't happen. long adopted by americans when she was 13 months old who won a gold medal at paralympic games is not better off being able to attain a gold most couldn't dream of in your country. put tin is a met tore in politics say ago press conference with president bush the deck has been dealt and we are here to play. adoptive parents with big hearts and other fans